Out of memory errors

Been recently getting a lot of "Out of memory" errors recently.
One project file in particular seems to be the most prone, it is a sizable project file, 200mb.
All media and project file are connected via an external usb3 drive that is 80% full.

lupacexi's question is verbatim a question posted in this forum two years ago.

Quote
Joe Riggs
"Out of memory" errors
May 22, 2015 04:07AM

Been recently getting a lot of "Out of memory" errors recently.
One project file in particular seems to be the most prone, it is a sizable project file, 200mb.
All media and project file are connected via an external usb3 drive that is 80% full.

Wondering what is the cause and solution? I do have 24gb of Ram.

So lupacexi is a jokester. "lupacexi" gets 6,500 hits in Google search. It's an online thing.
Nick replied to Joe two years ago.

There's an acknowledged maximum project file size. I want to say it is 70mb but I see where some say 100mb. In addition FCP7 can throw that error when it runs out of graphic card memory. Which may require some flattening to keep you from going crazy.

QuoteEthanThere's an acknowledged maximum project file size. I want to say it is 70mb but I see where some say 100mb.

Acknowledged by whom? We recently finished a half-year FCP7 project here with final filesize 139 MB without incident. In a topic from 2014, Derek Mok wrote:

QuoteI'd only start suspecting an overlarge project file around the 150MB mark or so.

It's the project complexity -- really its complexity when open in a certain state -- that the program succumbs to. The filesize does not measure this complexity.

It might be fun to experiment with how FCP7 manages memory -- how much of a project it puts into memory? Is it like the size of the .xml for the sequence presently selected? Or the .xml's for all the sequences open? Or the .xml's for all the sequences in the project? Or more? Or less? A 31x31x31 3D LUT is a huge filter. The .xml for a sequence grows by about 1.7 MB for each application of this filter. The project file only grows by about 200 KB; we can presume that the memory requirement is between those values. By this technique you can grow a sequence to great complexity in order to test FCP7s memory management.